Basil

Re: My mostly hard sci-fi campaign Thanks for demonstrating what I've long thought: Except for the "red & blue chicklets on a white plaque over the left pocket" bit, the uniforms of The Empire in Star Wars are the most reasonable and believable uniforms in popular Sci-Fi. Beats the "color-coded long-sleeve t-shirts" of Star Trek (original), the silver-lamé of 50's Sci-Fi movies, etc., etc.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Your DemiMooreBot is starting to do "strippers' bumps" again. A: Those are shoulderpips. Not poops.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Misfile's Ash.

Re: A Game Of Questions Rules????? There are rules? ??

Re: Foxbat for President Too bad it depends on two books I don't have and can't afford.

Re: A Game Of Questions Is Yahoo reliable for anything?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Fighting giant robots. NT: Situations where having super-strength is of absolutely no help.

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model Spook in Speanerisms: Your tang is always tongueled up, and the wrords come out wong. Even the senplest simtence goes wayhire. If you mow what I knean. The Mallard has found his Cryptography skill insufficient to decypher the above. But the Bacandforthtrian knows it's all in one's point of view.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: If he tries to shoot you, just dodge. A: They revoked the Law of Gravity!

Re: Mottos for use in games One for the evil masterminds: Mox erō invictus!

Re: What would happen - and at what cost? Given a cheap method of getting into space, there are materials worth mining. Given mining, manufacturing will move into space for two reasons: building and repairing mining machinery, and building and repairing refinery machinery --- no matter how cheap to/from orbit travel is, there are enormous savings to be had by reducing the mass to be moved. Hence refineries, hence manufacturing. Once that manufacturing base is in place, there's a strong impetus to increase the amount of mining, which leads to increased populations, which will want more than the bare necessities, which leads to manufacturing more than mining and refinery gear, which leads to.... And so on, and so forth.

Re: Population Growth for a colony In theory, the rate of population increase counting only births depends on the average number of female children per female (called F), and the average time between the birth of a female and the birth of her female child/children (called G--generational time). The rate = ln(F)/G If the death rate is independent of the size of the population, then multiply the above rate by (1-death rate). This is more accurate with a fairly large population: with a population in the low thousands it's only approximate.

Re: A Game Of Questions What did Lewis Carroll look like, anyway?

Re: Seemingly Silly Things to Model The Curse of Felgercarb: You can make someone unable to pronounce technical terms; every time the target tries to say a word that is a technical or scientific term, all that comes out is nonsense. (Probably some kind of Cosmetic or Minor Transform)

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... ...and he used the splints to knock the cat out of the tree.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat The smell. NT: Smells (other than that of a dead body) you really don't want to smell.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Vhy is everinkbody walkink from-round viss shot-type-guns? A: It's not the worst accent I've ever heard, but it comes close.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... ...the team medic keeps running out of Bandaids and Bactine, but hasn't had to use the splints once. OTOH, that might be a sign they're overpowered...

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "...your favorite non-HERO RPG..." --- I'm sorry, but your statement makes no sense. NT: Subtle signs that you, yourself, are out of your mind.

Re: Your PCs might be Underpowered if... Lawnmower Boy, this is "Your PCs might be Underpowered if..." It is not "Quote of the Week from my gaming group..." Please move your post to the appropriate thread. Thank you.

Re: Answers & Questions

Re: A Game Of Questions Don't you understand the difference between multiplying and dividing??!?

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Describe the average television show. A: Only without the smurfs, this time.

Re: My mostly hard sci-fi campaign A few notes on some of your proposed colonies. Given that Mercury's day is ~2/3 its year, a synchronous orbit would be so far away that Sol would have an overwhelmingly more powerful gravitational attraction. In short, your colony would land up orbiting Sol, not Mercury. As above, only more so, as Venus rotates retrograde. Two points: 1) Are you talking about Earth-Luna Lagrange points, or Sol-Earth Lagrange points? 2) Only L4 and L5 points are usefully stable: L1, L2, and L3 are stable only in the theoretical situation where (A) the second body's orbit is utterly circular and ( there are only three bodies in the universe. With Luna's orbit not being a perfect circle and with other bodies (particularly Sol) pulling on anything in the first 3 Lagrange points, such stations would need to expend a boatload of propellant staying "on station". I suggest you double check; as far as I can find out, Chryse Planitia is not on Mars's equator. Unless your setting has ships with enough power and enough propellant capacity to not use Hohmann orbits, they'll be there a whole lot longer. Not possible; synchronous orbits have to have an average "latitude" of the equator. You can have one that goes as far south as the Red Spot, but it will go as far north, as well. See last. That "chaotic" rotation will make landing and take-off ludicrously difficult, if possible at all. And its mass is high enough that "regularizing" the rotation is impractical. I don't have enough information to be sure, but my gut feeling is a synchronous orbit will be inside the rings. BTW, "geosynchronous" is only used WRT Earth. "Synchronous" can be applied to any body, without having to figure out the proper Greek-/Latin-derived term. See last.

Re: Crossroads: Urban Fantasy HERO Indianapolis